


The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

by psithurism (BattleBrotocol)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged up dipper, M/M, Other, also the rating really isn't going to have any ramifications on the story, although i might add graphic violence or something nsfw eventually, it'll probably be pretty general for a while, probably a lot of other characters but they aren't the main focus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:50:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2712881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BattleBrotocol/pseuds/psithurism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the sleepy town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, there's a shack full of secrets in a woods full of terrifying mysteries. And in that woods, Dipper Pines dies. It's an opportunity for a fresh body that needs a little patching up, and Bill takes it, but he can't keep it forever if Dipper's disembodied ghost ever decides to show up and start panicking. sounds kind of serious and dark, but its really not (probably??)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Well my trust in you is a dog with a broken leg

There’s a bitter, dry tang in the back of Bill’s mouth when the sensation of Dipper’s still body shifts to life under his possession, like soured cream in a pot of old coffee—familiar, vaguely, in that sense. The joints he moves are stiff and poorly used, each digit of Dipper’s fingers wriggling in the jittered way that Bill tends to pace his motions, like a cog sputtering jagged and unkempt in a smooth machine, a clock that ticked seconds to an irregular beat, unpredictable. He was abnormal, his grins were wide enough to hurt his cheeks, too much off white tooth and canines that weren’t jagged, but still managed to look _predatory_ under his stare, slitted eyes keen and blazing wild, shredding mental barriers. Those same looks now scattered wayward over the scenery before him; the forest was dark, lazy and sluggish in its mid-summer winds which carried a thick heft to them, even in the dead of night. metal weight wafted on the air, pungent where he lie in what might as well be a vat of his own, or rather, Dipper’s own blood. When he thinks of that boy, it occurs to him that there is no ghastly presence to be seen, detached from his body and wired at the frayed nerves upon seeing his body’s possession, the manic glee glinting in the reflection of his own face. The ghastly presence was nowhere to be seen, fretting and fraying his nerves to no end over a triangular entity of power and anarchy taking over his body once again.  
  
If he _was_ there, Bill surmised, the kid probably wouldn’t be all that angry, at least—frayed, paranoid, but he’d be pretty damn insulted if Dipper had the audacity to be angry, considering his body was in shambles and cooling on the dirt without an inhabitant. Had he taken to the scene five minutes later, the blood would’ve congealed and there would be no saving Dipper’s body, so...  
  
“Take what you get, and don’t throw a fit!” He called in that half-yell way his voice rang, cutting the solemn silence of the forest in a way that seemed utterly obtrusive, the echo of it a dimensional waver that quivered through the air with nothing but a sharp sting of words. They didn’t bounce back at him, like they might in vast caves. The forest swallowed his words and left no bones. The beast that had gored Dipper’s body was gone off now, after Bill’s intervention, but not before leaving the kid with serious damage control, which, and he figured this was pretty crucial, was taken care of once the demon had pulled himself back into the skin of a fleshsuit, no longer chained solely to the mindscape and its limited power. A beat of silence settled over him, and there was a sensation in his gut he associated to humans as _dread,_ but Bill always felt it was more of a thinking sickness. He had plans, and this was a roadblock he needed to clear, unless he wanted to take the detour. Nobody liked detours.  
  
The Pines were a notorious family. They stuck their noses into business that didn’t belong to them, muddled with his plans and imposed a very binary logic of good versus evil against his plans. They called him _evil,_ he liked to think of it as self-serving; take what benefited him, get rid of whatever didn’t. The conundrum there was that these people pried. Dug. They took down his plan and a million others, and he had no affection for humans or them, especially, when a pair of kids had been steadfast holding his plans back for the eight consecutive years they’ve been coming back to the sleepy town of Gravity Falls, Oregon.  
  
But the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?  
  
It was better to keep this piece in play, after all. A defiant pawn was still a pawn, and he’d still be one less without him. Bill had always kept an eye on the mystery twins for that same reason, kept his thousands of eyes and thousands of windows through the subconscious nudged open a crack, not enough to make their heads itch and dreams ooze his particular brand of hellish nightmare, but just so he wouldn’t be shut out of their heads. And a good thing, too.  
  
 _Running wasn’t a good idea. He’s seen the discovery channel, knows enough about apex predators; you just don’t outrun them, that isn’t how it works. But now it’s looking at him, and he’s never been one to put prejudice on animals, mythical or not, for just doing what they do but it looked downright furious at his existence, jaw muscles twitching with restrained force. He’s standing shellshocked with a stick as his only defense, which is downright puny but hell if he’s going to go down without jabbing his potential murderer in the eye a few times with the jagged end of a twig. His foot twitches a step back, it lunges_ — __  
  
Bill makes a noise, starting to finally pull himself to his feet, no longer content with sitting in a sticky mess of blood and leaves when it started going slimy and cold in contrast to the heavy air and sweat on his skin. Movement is just as cumbersome as it was eight years ago, every ripped motion a jagged edge, legs wobbling in that bow-legged way he maneuvered, arms a little bit of everywhere, at his sides, away from them, but never out in front of himself when he starts to fall. The instinct just isn’t there to catch himself.  
  
Despite the familiarity in this artful lack of coordination, he’ll admit to quite a few changes. Dipper wasn’t a sickly kid, but he ate poor in the starting years of puberty, no substance to anything and he burned the midnight oil brighter than Bill has ever seen a twelve year old blaze He’d been noodly in all kinds of places, not really skinny, still soft in a lot of ways like an awkward little preteen was supposed to be. It hadn’t been an ideal vessel, strictly speaking.  
  
Early introduction to coffee and lacking all self-preservation through the first quarter of his teenhood definitely kept him down. Mabel was, at his rightful guess, around 5’7”, Stan had to be at least 6’ even. Dipper was a good two inches below his sister, and with no rightful reason to blame his genetics, the kid was a runt by choice. Even so, he actually learned how to put on stock weight in fat and muscle, which was pretty vital for his life of self-appointed monster hunting and entangling himself with the dangerous affairs of the paranormal.  
  
  
Overall, he could still ask for a better vessel to suit his needs, maybe something more tailored to his personality- not that he ever had any particular _enjoyment_ for human forms, beyond the fact that they were a fun little spin on an otherwise sleepy progression of his plans. And, well, they let him interact with this plane of existence. That was always a bonus, really, when you’re subjected to being bound by a circle to do nothing but wander like a ghost through people’s subconscious. Could get boring, if they didn’t let you pick the locks.  
  
“Whoa-ho, at least I’m not worried this thing is going to have a crash on me—probably. You are taking better care of it now, right? Seems like it! Never really had self-preservation before, being immortal. And the whole,” He waved his hand at the wrist, a slow, him-haw sort of gesture, while bowed legs did their little hop-wobble of a walk, like he was expecting an elevated step, only to have his footfall land flat. “Well, I never had a body to preserve.” He’s speaking to dead air, he knows, but that’s not anything new and frankly, it gives him a little more entertainment to pretend Dipper is there, freaking out over his body. At least Bill hadn’t resorted to jabbing it with sharp objects or running repeatedly into trees, and for that, he thought himself quite generous.  
  
It took him a lot longer to get back to the shack than he expected, or at least, it seemed like a long time. The dreamscape didn’t really have a concept of time- minutes in this reality passed in seconds or in hours, whichever effect was desired. He could let days tick by without noticing more than a few seconds, and could do the same for any poor schmuck that happened to let him get into their head and on his bad side. But, if he had to take a shot in the dark, and really, he must, with how damn black the murky night sky is, he’d probably say it was close to an hour before he’s got that pitch of little dim light, windows in the distant and shredded softly by a thicket of trees still in his way.  
  
That girl, Mabel, she must have been watching the windows or something, because he’s no closer than a few feet from the shack before she’s pressing her face against the glass of a nearby surface, looking delighted for the fraction of a second it takes for her eyes to register him in the dark light, and then it’s shock—she disappears instantaneously, and already he imagines the _pitter pitter_ of her frantic steps to the door. It’s kind of exhausting because, he figures, that he’ll have to at least _try_ to pretend if he doesn’t want to get found out. And damn if he wants to be-- way too much meddling, way too much blame, rash conclusions and the such.  
  
She’s patting at him with something that must be worry on her face, while he kind of just stands there with his hands awkwardly bent at his sides, wobbling from left toright when his equilibrium leaves him.  
  
“—You don’t look hurt, Dipper, but this is a _lot_ of blood. Is it yours?” She’s still looking at him like it is (it is.), but she’s also got this crossed look of shifting worry, like it’s less about his physical state and more about his mental one.  
  
Naturally, he’s going to lie.  
  
“Nope!” He cheers, patting her on the top of the hand, which is outstretched in a I-want-to-help-but-are-you-okay sort of way, and promptly brushes into the shack with a few gleeful looks around. He’s gotten peeks of it through his snooping, but it’s been eight years since he’s gotten such a clear view. The place is uglier than it was before, if possible- even rattier, paint even peelier, the works. He clips the toe of his shoe on a floorboard and nearly falls over himself, not even making an attempt to catch his impact. It doesn’t come, though, because he gets himself righted with several massive steps forward and a rather loud cackle to signify his triumph. He turns to Mabel.  
  
“Got tangled up with a nasty thing in the woods, not pretty. Didn’t land a scratch on me but, _yeesh,_ still not sure how it walked out alive.” That was the opposite of true. It walked away virtually unscathed, but it was a wonder Dipper’s body left alive. Technically, it didn’t-- Bill just happened to be a good guy.  
  
Her eyes were suspicious. She looked worried. Obviously playing the same trick twice wasn’t going to get him fond results. He smiles, toothy and big enough to hurt his cheeks and bare dull canines.  
  
“Sorry for being out so late, sis! You were waiting up for me, thanks.” His words don’t match his expression. He’s wild, eyes lit blazing and calculative, like he’s sizing up just how much damage he can deal with the click of his tongue, but his voice is calm, mimicking. He’s got a permanent tick in his head that wobbles it towards the left, and he’s already pawing his hand at the rail that leads up to the attic. They don’t share rooms anymore, he knows, Mabel moved out of there after taking it upon herself to renovate one of the other box filled storage rooms in the shack.  
  
“Hey,” She starts. It sounds serious, and not the serious he really equates with Shooting Star and her goofball way of approaching Dipper’s negligence with himself, which he’s agonizingly familiar with, after pushing in a few too many windows through this kids life. He stops, a remark on his tongue, but he waits. His eyes stare without the intention of seeing, one foot on the step.  
  
“You really scared me, Dip. Take a shower, and no more running around the woods at night! Even Grunkle Stan was freaked out.” Something about her tone says she isn’t really committed to it, and it puts Bill on edge even further, but he doesn’t say a word. He isn’t putting any effort into it, but his expression pittered until it was blank, much more suited to how Dipper would look, in these circumstances. He nods, hums a slow note of recognition for the girl and her plight to a brother that wasn’t there. Seeing no reason to continue the conversation, he moves on. They stand still and clenched under a thick air for a brief moment, and it’s Bill who breaks off this sibling tension. He walks away, up the stairs in clunky, mismatched patterns that don’t quite hit the floorboards regularly.  
  
It occurs to him halfway up the stairs that he can’t shower with his clothes on.

 


	2. Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out

Normally, given that Bill wasn’t tied as the inhabitant and soul of the body he took control of, this meant he was launched out of it when said body went to sleep, like a reboot of the system that refreshed it all and pushed him back into the subconscious realm of dreams where the normal human mind only has a sliver of a view into. This won’t do, if his body doesn’t have a human consciousness to inhabit it while it sleeps, because it’ll just shut down if he’s not there to keep all those involuntary functions like breathing and heartbeat going.  
  
You know, necessary stuff. He doesn’t want to possess a cadaver— hell, he can’t possess a cadaver, it’s just a limitation to his abilities and a limitation of what the human body is capable of. Omnipotent and all powerful, but even Bill will admit that his magic only extends so far, and is cut severely short when bound to a circle that keeps him spinning loops around deals to yield any power, and cursed to lack any physical existence to interfere with the waking world. If he was ever bitter about his restriction, he doesn’t have any recollection of it, and his current feeling is mostly a brooding patience that says he knows things will fall into his favor eventually. Not now, but eventually.  
  
His power right now did not dictate that he can keep a human body alive for eight hours without there being a consciousness that resides in it. After a shower with straight hot water that made the skin inflamed and pink, he’d taken to Dipper’s bedroom, locked the door, and decided he’d

have time to snoop around later when he wasn’t busy finding the nearest thick writing utensil.   
  


It’d be a busy night.  
  
When he wakes up in the morning— and it really is a strange sensation, waking up— his head is still leaking with nightmares that don’t have much of an effect on him. They’re all Dipper’s, recollections of his adventures and the less fortunate situations they got him into, all the near death experiences he’s been in, the vivid sound of crunching bone and squelching flesh.  He licks across his front teeth just to make sure they were there, a churning sickness in his gut a mere bodily reaction, nothing he could take hold of. He'd gladly pull it in, if someone wasn't currently beating their fists against his sternum.  
  
His eyes shoot open with no bleary glimpse between unconsciousness and the waking world, because all it was for him was shifting from one plane to the other, out of the dreamscape and back to the illusion these people called reality. Admittedly, he’s kind of confused as to what is going on for about two solid seconds, and then Mabel’s grinning face greets him, significantly more suffocating than the bright sunlight trying to poison his crusty eyes. Human bodies really did have their drawbacks, when you stayed in them for more than a few hours at a time and were forced to deal with all their little aches.  
  
“C’mon, Dip! It’s almost noon, you’re usually up with the sun!” She stopped banging on his chest when she realized he was awake, swatting limp-wristed hands at her in a feeble attempt to block off the sibling antagonism in a way that should be groggy and tired, but truthfully looks carelessand uninterested in her existence and plight towards having him doze for 10 hours  
straight. It occurs to him to wonder how she got into the room, when he distinctly remembers locking the door so he could have his privacy to draw incantations on the floor without having these little snoops taking to business that wasn’t theirs. A half-used stick of charcoal is on the floor, and they’re smudged, but still pretty evident in contrast to the wood when he darts his eyes over the section for a fraction of a second. She doesn’t make comment about it, and he does the same while starting to stand.  
  
“Whatever! A guy can get some shuteye now and again, can’t he?” It’s still too loud and obtrusive, all the octaves and fluctuates on a wrong note, vowels enunciated a little too long in a pattern that definitely didn’t coexist with Dipper’s speech, which was quick and sharp but hindered by his clunky, awkward phrasing and a little tick. Whenever he was still trying to think of what to say next, he’d start repeating consonants. A pretty nasty stutter, overall. Bill didn’t have that, his head was smooth and his silver tongue came easy.  
  
“Yeah, but it’s not healthy to sleep your whole day away.” She watches him walk like a baby deer on fresh legs, around the room in slow motions. He’s eyeing the shelves of little trinkets and tokens Dipper has taken from his adventures and pawned off of online sellers when he thought something to be a genuine article of the paranormal sort. His intuition was pretty keen, Bill admits, but most of it is pretty low-brow or more for show than actual magical properties.  
  
“Better than staying up all night, ain’t it?” He turns on his heel a full 180 to stare at her, arms outstretched at his sides, mouth pulled taut in a grin.   
  
She makes a noise of protest for a moment, but it piddles to a stop while she knocks her head back and forth, a silent way of saying she knows he’s right.   
  
“Still, you were supposed to help me with the shack this morning! Grunkle Stan said it was okay since you had a long night, but that’s pretty lenient for him already!”   
  
Her wariness from the night before seems gone, and now she’s doing nothing but pester him about petty little things like the shack, their job, so on and so forth. All the same, she refused to make eye contact with him through the entire ordeal, and that explained more than her fussy words ever could about the true nature of her caution.  
  
“Jeez, sis. No need to scold me.” Ignoring her otherwise, his head cranes around at the neck, looking up at storage boxes that were still tucked high on the shelves, either full of Dipper’s memorabilia that wasn’t safe to be kept out on a shelf  in his bedroom, or the typical storage box garbage that hasn’t seen the light of day in over a decade. He barks a small laugh, completely disregarding Mabel and her comment of did you sleep in a pair of jeans? while trotting himself over to Dipper’s desk, which was full of barely-organized papers. Bill inspects the massive corkboard sitting on the wall above it, pinned with pictures and scraps of this and that, a messy collage that tied together the various mysteries of Gravity Falls. It was entertaining just how far he got, and even more so when Bill could point out all the blanks so easily, just jam his finger at the board and spew it off like it was nothing, and the kid would give him this look of hate, awe, and even more hate because he dared to look at Bill with awe. Humans were so easy.  
  
“Well, here I am, going to work!” He starts trotting away from the desk and to the door, movements still an irregular mess of practically falling forward in the ill-controlled body. He’s almost out when Mabel finally moves again, jogging ahead of him and only stopping just outside the threshold of the door, while he stares, head craning and eyes moving with keen sense in her direction, but she still won’t look directly at him. Always at his chest, or his hair. Never his eyes  
  
“Aren’t you hungry?” She says conversationally, and when he manages to get out of the bedroom and starting down the stairs, the thought finally strikes him. His head swivels this way and that, taking the last two steps all at once and somehow managing to smack his head against the wall to his right when he hits the bottom. It makes him laugh, even if he knows he should at least try to keep a cover.   
  
“Sounds like a chore! Besides, weren’t you the one saying I’ve got work to do?” It’s hard for her to interject after that, when he’s too busy making too-small steps in a half run out towards the tourist sham they called a shop. Bill didn’t know what day it was, but with the amass of gullible people meandering this way and that, he’d make a guess on a weekend. Frankly, he’s amazed this place still gets customers, but tourists are sad little people with no way of bettering themselves besides disillusioning their heads into the fables of some mysterious little town.  
  
He’s seen Dipper work here on a few occasions with his spying, and without much thought beyond that, he hops right over to the stool behind the register like a good employee, and plops down on top of it, making the thing wobble and nearly fall before being righted once again. His shoulders have an obnoxious stiffness to them, smile less friendly and more like a warning to anyone daring to approach the counter so he could ring up their sad little purchases of shoddily crafted trinkets and gifts.  
  
Unfortunately, tourists don’t care. Tourists want their ugly hats and overpriced T-shirts regardless of the unnerving face behind the register. Some even have the gall to speak to him directly, either asking a question about what to do in the area or spewing their life story at him about how they were just passing through, or taking a roadtrip, which usually got a twitch in the muscle of his jaw while taking their money. He’d return their change and happily say he absolutely did not care about their meaningless little life, and go on with rocking back and forth on the stool.   
  
The shack closed at five. It was dead by four-thirty, but Stanford had caught him trying to leave when nobody had come in for the last ten minutes, and promptly told him to get back behind the register. He didn’t like having to abide by these pathetic little people, but this was an important opportunity to take Dipper’s body without having the kid trying to bother him back out of it— he couldn’t underestimate the Pines family again, not like last time.  
  
So he silently wished Stanford to an early grave while sitting back on the stool. Five minutes before the hour, he heard the door bell chime. His head was in a state of ever-alert, but when he swiveled a glance in the direction of another lowly tourist, there was nothing to be seen. It was still bright as can be outside, sunny and full of cheer, but Bill felt the picturesque landscape peeking outside the windows to be a foreboding omen.  
  
His first destination when he was finally allowed to leave was, of course, Dipper’s room. He started flicking his thumb and index finger together, igniting little flames just above his skin like a fidget with a lighter, eyes darting around the entire house. Stanford was nowhere to be found, now, and Shooting Star was playing with her strange, ugly pet in the living room. It probably wasn’t all that uncommon for Dipper to stalk off to the upstairs and not come out again, with how much dedication the kid had towards being a total hermit from society, and the girl doesn’t even try to stop him when he doesn’t acknowledge her, just skimming his hand poorly against the railing while ascending the shoddy steps.  
  
The books on the shelves inside his room are nice and all, but Bill knows better than that. Dipper was paranoid— really paranoid, and when he stumbled upon an authentic piece of information that gave him insight on the paranormal, he would not so readily display it out in the open. He’s chewing the already stubby cuticles of Dipper’s nails when he sits on the bed, leaning back while a few waves of his free hand start the motions that make things move. Books will float from the shelves, boxes will be taken down. His magic even scanned the floorboards and found one loose— leave it to Dipper to hide a scrying glass under his own feet.  
  
Bill licked his dry lips, and started to click the little fire above his finger again.  
  
It’s summer, he’s in the attic, and it should be unbearably hot, even to him. Something chills the back of his neck, while he’s flipping pages in the air, pupils dilating every time he looks between the flame on his hand and the pages that could burn in front of him. There’s something manic in his eyes, excited, confrontational. The taste of blood feels fresh on his tongue when he thinks about that creature in the woods, and why it would gore Dipper of all things and leave once the kill was done.  
  
There was a mystery at his fingertips, and for once, it was Bill who needed to unravel it. The fire on his hand was snuffed out.  
  
This boy was the epicenter of something huge.


	3. My Head Got Overrun And These Things Are No More Fun

It’s been something close to three and a half days since Bill took this fleshy corpse, and the whole shtick is starting to get old. He’s not really capable of using his powers to their fullest when his energy is being bound to a corporeal form, which has made him resort to looking for information in books that the kid has practically crawling in the walls of his room. There aren’t actually that many, but most are thick and chalk full of information that he’d probably find useful— Bill feels more like he’s leafing through scrap paper, half the time. His reverie is halted by the sound of feet and hinges moving, which frankly unnerves him about as much as a human can unnerve a demon-esque entity of otherworldly power. Mabel is there. He still hasn’t figured out how she gets in when he locks both the door _and_ the swing latch.  
  
“Gooood evening, my favorite hermit of a brother!” She sing-songs, walking into the room with two huge bowls of mac and cheese, and promptly deposits herself on a scarce free space on Dipper’s bed. The expression he gives the food is something of a mix between interested and downright disgusted, but it occurs to him that he hasn’t eaten a meal since inhabiting this body, just energy bars and water, when he remembered that humans needed food to survive. It makes his stomach churn sickly, so he takes the whole thing and starts shoveling bites into his mouth.  
  
“You’ve been skipping dinner, bro-bro.” She starts eating her own food, and he stares for a slow moment, before turning his head back down at the books in a rather dismissive fashion, while he spoons another bite into his mouth. It’s not bad, all things considered, even if the texture of food grinding between his teeth in the form of cheese and noodle is kind of sickening in an unfamiliar sense.  
  
  
They start to eat in silence; Mabel’s a bright contemplation, and Bill’s more or less just stubborn while he hopes she’ll leave before getting into business she shouldn’t be stepping into. He’s already gone back to flipping through pages and jotting down things with one of the chewed on pens he found, which he strictly does not try to consume—another thing about him, he doesn’t fidget. Between pages and long paragraphs, he just stares, face still and caught in a sick look of unnerving alertness despite the darkness rimming his eyes.  
  
“So, whatcha been doing up here?” Smalltalk. Exactly what he was hoping to avoid. She stares down at a book only titled _Lazarus_ in gold letters on an extremely old, worn binding. Truthfully, he despises this method of information gathering, but being bound to Dipper’s body meant his range was limited and the corporeal ties kept him in this reality and the dreamscape. The only saving grace he really _had_ was that it was slow, sure, but not fruitless. He’ll start burning books when they lead him to dead ends.  
  
“The fact it isn’t obvious is kind of sad! Research, what else do you do with a bunch of dusty old bricks?” He proceeds to dismiss anything further with an impudent noise and a bite of mac and cheese.  
“Somebody’s being a cocky smarty-pants today.” She comments lightly, plucking another book up from the pile.  
  
“Is that going to stop me from being a cocky smarty-pants? Unlikely!” His stare on the book is becoming increasingly intent, no longer feeling very charmed by his corporeal form. His scab-covered fingers jot down another name amongst a list on his paper. Mabel tilts her head at an odd angle to look at the papers, quiet for a long moment. She looks at the books and frowns.  
  
“Dipper! You are _not_ going to raise the dead again, are you?”  
  
Most of them _are_ about the afterlife, but not raising the dead per se, more about information on spiritual bindings and the dimensions that human souls weaved through when disconnected from their bodies. Less macabre and more astral projection, he’d surmise-- although there is a certain _je ne sais quoi_ about how humans die for good. Burning up their energy via unconsciously drifting between dimensions, until they were nothing but dust.  
  
“You got me! Here comes a horde of bloodthirsty zombies, right your way!” He cackles in delight at her expression, which isn’t horrified so much as it is brooding over his joke. She finally looks at the closed book she picked up, which is titled _lesser known entities of the mortal world._  
  
“That’s not funny. What’s lesser known entities mean? Everything we see seems pretty lesser known.”  
  
For the first time, his head moves slowly up to stare at her. She’s flipping the pages slowly, and he grins wolfishly.  
  
“To _us,_ sure! But you’re thinking too secular. Lesser known to things with bigger and better plans than we do.” He closes one of the books and makes a haphazard sort of toss, letting it land discarded just behind him.  
  
“So.. what, all the goofy stuff? Like the gnomes?” Either Dipper’s pretty secluded about his information to his sister, which Bill thinks unlikely, or she’s asking questions she didn’t normally ask her brother. Something tells him it’s the latter.  
  
“Eh, if you want to boil it down to that. Lesser known means _of this dimension,_ and without ability to pass through dimensions. Flora and fauna with magic.” There are a few categories: things like him, which have risen in the mortal dimension, but reside comfortably in another and exchange between them. there are entities that are on par with dimensions themselves, taking up entire galaxies and cosmos that project their energy like solar flares out into the black abyss; organic entities are the easiest to deal with. Less chaotic and usually much more mindless.  
  
  
“Jeez, you’re being really serious about this. Alright, next question! What’s got your head so stuffed in the books? More than usual. Way more!”  
  
He scratches his cheek mindlessly, head craning back and around the room, eyes wide and unmoving, relying strictly on neck movement to scope his surroundings, while he makes a too-loud humming noise in the back of his throat.  
  
“What attacked me in the woods wasn’t supposed to attack me. Factually. Magical animalia are predictable.” He’s mostly talking because he likes to talk, because he’d been fine with digging through the subconscious by himself for an entire immortal existence, but being something loosely _human_ was like pulling teeth. Which actually sounded kind of pleasant, now that he considered it with a thoughtful press of his tongue against his upper molars.  
  
She doesn’t question his knowledge. He can practically see her scrutinizing him behind her cheery eyes, why he’s stating these things like fact when someone as paranoid as Dipper had to have every variable in the box. Jumping to conclusions was one thing, but Bill was on a whole different level.  
  
“Sooo,” She breaks the silence, while he’s busy scraping cheese sauce off the bottom of his bowl. “If you’re so sure, why’re you still diggin’ through these books? I mean, it didn’t have to be what you saw!” She closes the book she’d been flipping through with a short _thump_ of the pages hitting together. “We’ve had to deal with shapeshifters _before,_ right?”  
  
He stops, stares at her, and licks cheese off of his fingers while using the opposite hand to write a new table on his paper titled _shapeshifters._ After a moment, he writes another labeled _mind control_ and crosses himself between a manic grin and something edging on annoyance. These kids were getting smart, and he was starting to be the narrow-minded one.  
  
  
Taking what she clearly considers a triumph as incentive, she hops off of the bed and grabs him by the arm. This makes him tense, face whipping up to stare at her with a warning glint of teeth stuck cheerily on his face. She still won’t look him in the eye.  
  
“Since I helped, you’re getting out of your room.”  
  
He stares at her, vaguely wondering why he’s going through all the trouble to dabble with this meddling family. He intends to grab dipper’s soul so he can get answers and maybe prod the kid to see what makes him so interesting, and only remains quiet and complacent in his wild tendencies with a corporeal form because he does not want to deal with this family and their chaotic, sickening behavior.  
  
Without actually moving anything, he gets up— this knocks the books and papers around him around on the bed and some onto the floor, clattering mutedly onto the wood. He won’t stop looking stiff and jerky, especially when Mabel starts tugging him towards the door and down the stairs. Apparently, she’s decided they’re having a family movie night. All Pines are in attendance and he wants to gauge his own eyes out.  
  
They marathon a trilogy until midnight. Well, Stanford sits through one before receding to God knows where before Mabel can put in the second film, but he and this girl sit through three movies together. Through the first, he’s internally fuming.  
  
The second one involves him mostly crossing his arms and staring at the screen with what he liked to call _retail kindness_. the mindless entertainment is starting to get to him, though. He’s actually craving a little anticipation when she puts in the third, and it makes him feel like letting Dipper’s body drop dead just to avoid the sensation.  
  
By midnight, they had snacked through two giant buckets of popcorn and he was pacified on the ugly piss-chair with its legrest extended for easier laying, his cheek squished against the arm. he’s conversing willingly about the movie, which isn’t a good sign in the slightest.  
  
“Is he going to—”  
  
“ _Yes.”_  Mabel replies excitedly, vibrating despite the near full five hours they spent watching.  
the climax seems to make them both feel some strange, welling excitement of adventure and resolution. He hates the feeling stirring in his gut. It’s a bodily reaction, those are definitely the worst.  
  
She starts chattering about the movie and Bill gives her mostly dismissive replies. his mouth is agape like he’s expecting to catch flies in it, because apparently she has fun throwing popcorn into it, and he’s started just accepting it after the first three pieces. They spend the last ten minutes of the movie like that.  
  
Mabel shivers. Bill shivers too, directly in the middle of catching a piece of popcorn on his tongue, and it lodges in his throat. When he makes a horrid, hissing-hacking sound to dislodge it, Mabel snorts, points, and laughs.  
  
When the sloshing, cold sensation of another presence doesn’t leave, Bill finally throws himself off of the chair in sluggishly, wobbling on his feet in a few ocean-swaying motions before righting his stance with his arms extended fully out on each side, a grin stuck on his face.  
  
“If you’re goin’ back to your room, it better be to hit the hay. I mean it!” She stands up too, bringing her blanket up with her. He waves the comment off dismissively.  
  
“Sure am, sis! What else would I, a healthy, responsible fleshsuit, be doing?” When he turns to stare, his eyes surely something venomous, she pauses for a fraction long enough for him to gauge the reaction.  
  
“Staying up being a big _dweeb,_ as always! Which is why I’ll punish you with early breakfast tomorrow if you stay up all night.”  
  
Something thick with shadow is eating up the back of the open living room, somewhere behind Mabel, which his eyes immediately draw back to, his reply crystal clear but his entire body language was ignoring her. “Boy, you have _me_ convinced! Here I am, cowering off to my bed.” He starts patting off to the stairs, which thump obnoxiously under his improper steps. They grow muted once he hits the floor and the door closes behind him.  
  
His arms are covered in goosebumps, and his gut churns like something is trying to cram too much energy into one vessel. He laughs, breaking up the disgusting silence that was invading the room. Dipper’s life was going to be hell now, because Bill was intent to drag him back and utterly torture him after putting up with a _five hour movie marathon_ with his sister.  
  
 _Five. Hours._

 


	4. You Excite Me Like A Locked Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i drafted a couple of chapters ahead of this before getting back to this one because i was kind of stumped for ideas on this chapter. sorry if the plot-forwarding feels a little forced, but i promise i've got plans for the future. big plans

True to Mabel’s word, Bill was woken up sometime at the crack of dawn the next morning. As little as he had slept the night before, it was easy for a dream demon such as himself to trick his current flesh suit into feeling much perkier for the sake of convenience. Plus, he really did have a taste for certain human foods. Waffles were one of them, apparently.  
  
As begrudging as he was about spending any amount of time with the Pines family, with Mabel’s exuberant behavior and his general displeasure towards being around Stanford, it wasn’t all that bad. Well, it could be _worse,_ and that was his only saving grace-- he was still starting to fester quite the grudge towards this entire pathetic family, as if that grudge wasn’t already big enough from their previous encounters, leaving Bill defeated and fuming over the fact that a couple of human children could send his little joyride to a dead stop so readily.  
  
He shoves another bite of waffles into his mouth, this one more brooding than pleased, despite his face being a passive slate of wide-eyed staring. His eyes go between Stanford, and then Mabel. Mostly the girl, because she’s near constantly talking up some story or another, which is clearly the norm around these parts.  
  
How she’s managed to have this kind of energy for the last eight summers is beyond him.  
  
“—And we found these cool flowers in the woods! There were fairies in them!”   
  
He chews slowly, not entirely sure who she’s directing her excitement towards. Probably either of them, depending on who actually bothers to reply.  
  
“Fairies, huh. Do me a favor and see what happens when you cut off their wings. Or shake ‘em for pixie dust. Pixies, fairies, it’s all the same.”  
  
She makes a horrified noise at Stanford’s comments, although he’s pretty sure she’s playing up her offense for comedy’s sake. There’s no way this girl has gotten through life without a little bit of her brother’s morbid nature rubbing off. He cackles a bit, chewing on the metal of his cutlery.  
  
“That’s not funny, Dipper! I wouldn’t mutilate a _fairy._ ”  
  
“They’d mutilate you, pal!” He waves his fork flippantly, eyes rolling. A big grin is now stretching the muscles of his cheeks sore, a feeling he’s getting familiar with.   
  
“Oh, yeah, and you’re _suuuch_ an expert. Just ‘cause you read a bunch of fancy schmancy books. You’re a self-proclaimed hermit!”  
  
“Whether or not I’m a hermit is debatable. _Knowledgeable,_ on the other hand, I am! What do you have that can up me in that department?”  
  
“I’m plenty knowledgeable, thank you very much. And to prove that, we’re going on a fairy hunt! I kinda was plannin’ on it anyways.”  
  
“I was serious about the pixie dust, for the record.” Stanford interjects, causing Bill to snort while wearing an obscenely smug expression to Mabel’s horror and annoyance.  
  
A _fairy hunt,_ she was calling it. He was being dragged on a fairy hunt.  
  
Despite being an intolerable, sour old bastard, Bill had come to learn that Stanford was lenient with his employees— he tended to make Dipper do more of the grunt work than Mabel, Bill would have to guess, given the amount of bossing around he’s had to deal with in the short span of time he’s been residing in this body. Because of this, and because it was a weekday that honestly lacked any of their usual morning revenue, he didn’t really put up a fight when Mabel started dragging Bill off and out the front door, much to his own aggravation.   
  
Bill knows these woods well. As well as an omnipotent demon tied to Gravity Falls could know the woods, really, but Mabel seems content with leading the way, and he isn’t about to steer her in any right directions. Unfortunately, her know-how of the underbush was better than he had first anticipated, which he notes dully as their surroundings get a bit more colorful, the flowers a little more bright. Fae aren’t a particularly exciting race, and although the human-like caricatures of them with glittery wings and elegant bodies were a hyperbole romanticism, humanoid fae did exist.  
  
If decaying bodies grew fungus, then decaying minds grew fae. They were entities of conscious, growing and feeding off the energy that was produced when whatever people considered _souls_ wandered off through the dimensions to die. They were transdimensional in that sense, and catered less to the old world way that humans liked to believe in magic.  
  
They weren’t exactly friendly, as far as he knew.  
  
But he was also a being of pure energy, a limitless foodsource that they could latch onto. Humans were just the same, but living energy was like comparing a good steak to a walking cow. They knew the potential, they just didn’t usually see it as appetizing. Bill came a lot closer to what they wanted to snack on.  
  
Thankfully, having a human body meant his energy reserves were mostly stored in the mindscape, lest he pop Pinetree like a fat water balloon with his own cosmic existence. His being was just broadcasted into this form in a way he deemed fit, so once everything went from stalks of murky green and brown to bursts of amaranth and vibrant peony, he wasn’t exactly concerned with being drawn to by a bunch of fae looking to eat him.  
  
“Man, these things are ugly.” It’s not until they hit a spread out grove of obnoxiously vibrant green, stippled with cattleya and dandelions on all edges that he decides to comment on all the insects flocking around them. The girl seems utterly _delighted_ by the prospect of this, while little pixiesticks start flourishing among the underbrush in the form of various bugs. They have this thing about them, camouflaging as organic creatures-- it’s all fine and dandy up until the colors, which they can’t seem to get a damn hold of. Their constant fusion with the other dimensions makes everything kind of unstable, so they don’t really have a color. They’re like the sky, absorbing light and reflecting back the hue they can’t absorb, which range a span all across the goddamn rainbow.  
  
Well, to human eyes. Anything with a better perception of vision would know they’ve got a much more complicated look to them than this.  
  
“Dipper! Why are you so grumpy? They only bit you last time because you started poking them.” She grouches, and Bill snorts with blatant amusement over the fact that Pinetree had been getting his hands full with a bunch of angry technicolor bugs trying to gnaw his fingers off because he wanted to pin them to a board and hang it up on the wall. The kid had guts; kinda morbid, to boot.  
  
“Not my fault they’re little heathens of the unnatural world, sis!” Without much else to do and fully aware he wasn’t getting out of this situation anytime soon, Bill practically throws himself onto the ground, huffing when his back hits the tall grass.   
  
If he’s going to deal with this, he’s going to be petulant about it.  Normally, this would mean summoning fire and burning their little bug bodies to a charred crisp, but he isn’t about to let the last handful of odd days go to waste. As far as he’s concerned, he’s in too deep to let a faulty mistake get him put on the spot with the Pines. No, right now, petulant means he’s going to close his eyes, lay there like a corpse, and let them stand on his body like they’re about to start feeding on his corpse. They can probably smell the residual death on Dipper’s body, which is a smell that can’t be washed away to the supernatural no matter how hard he tries.  
  
Mabel doesn’t really seem to care. She talks to them, even though they don’t comprehend speech to any extent. Bill can’t tune her out, much like he can’t tune anything out as a vigilant creature of ever-prying eyes and ears.  
  
 _Bill.  
  
_ It hits him, but he doesn’t really hear it said. There’s a simple sensation inside of him that‘s ringing back, telling him he just heard his name. He ignores the girl.  
  
 _Bill._  
  
Bill.  
  
BILL!  
  
The joints in his stiff fingers twitch, as does his expression. It’s a grin that’s starting to hurt his cheeks again, and he contorts himself around like an animal stuck on its back for a few moments, before rolling over and sitting up on his knees. His head cranes unearthly this way and that, although he doesn’t exactly need to anticipate seeing something to know it’s there.  
  
And there’s nothing. He’s a little disappointed, frankly, but it makes sense. Places with a lot of fae mean places where the dead are drawn in like insects to a pitcher plant. And all that decaying energy slipping between dimensions made it easier for things to weave through. That must mean he’s been following them— Bill, specifically— this entire time.  
  
The breeze is thick and wafting heavy with summer humidity, but it makes gooseflesh jitter across the skin of his arms. Something else that isn’t Dipper Pines is trying to crawl through the dimensions on that boys back like a parasite.  
  
Mabel has to ask why his nose is bleeding after he spends a solid three minutes staring at a shadow that didn’t have anything to cast it. He doesn’t try to wipe it off, just grins when the blood gets braided with his teeth and turns his smile pink and sharp.  
  



	5. The Mind Electric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops sorry more filler kind of. i'm sorry this is supposed to be a blldip fic but i haven't even let them interact yet

Truthfully, Bill was starting to question his motives for this entire shtick. His initial reasoning was curiosity— he wanted answers from Dipper, wanted to know what kind of dark magic he was dabbling in out of Bill’s prying eyes, and what sort of thing he’d lured into his vicinity, clearly more powerful than the dream demon himself, much to his begrudging admittance. And while he was a patient guy, he also didn’t resign himself to raw deals. Sitting around in ugly, squishy sacks of organs for two and a half weeks while putting up with an obnoxious, potentially dangerous family definitely struck a chord with him, and it was rubbing his nerves raw.  
  
And he hadn’t even mutilated the thing. Chewing on his hand didn’t count, that was just something he did subconsciously, a pleasurable fidget that was barely starting to form scabs under the minor abrasions. As far as Bill was concerned, this was utter complacency, and he hated it.  
  
In a way, it was respect. He had some respect for Dipper’s curiosity and inane desire to get himself into stupid situations for the sake of answers. It resonated with his own destructive chaos that sought what omnipotence couldn’t give him— it just usually meant destroying _other_ people, not himself.  
  
But it was annoying. Nothing good would come out of giving this kid leeway, especially now knowing his ghost was hanging over his head, and Mabel still proved to be meddlesome to his plans, one way or another. But her genuine nature threw him for a loop more than not. He still suspected she was playing him with her innocence, but the amount of freedom he’s been given and lack of action they’ve taken was starting to make him antsy.  
  
There was vulnerability in comradery. He’d been nice enough, even if she did have any stipulations on whether or not it was actually her brother in this flesh suit. He was letting himself get too comfortable with her around. She was obnoxious and likable like that.  
  
A dollop of red oozed from his lip after chewing the skin off and leaving it to fester for a few moments. The gore was what he craved, more than anything. He wasn’t a particularly sadistic demon by any sort, he liked to think— especially compared to human depictions. Nor was he some cartoonish villain who liked to lament his poetic rage out against the good of mankind, wishing to see them fall at his feet in fire.  
  
Okay, that would be pretty cool. Only because it meant _drama,_ though.  
  
He liked flair.   
  
But he was self-serving, and did what benefited him without regard for what didn’t— practically neutral. His plans were strictly business, or the occasional curiosity. He liked it simple.  
  
The taste of iron rolled on his tongue, subtle and unsatisfying.  
  
  
  
  
  
Something in the corner moves.  
  
  
He’s been seeing that every night since he got here. It makes this flesh prickle with warning and the hair on the back of his neck stand on end every time he looks at it, like staring at something that he wasn’t supposed to. Defiantly, Bill often eyed the murky shadows that Dipper’s bedside lamp didn’t dispel, and a cold wash of anxiousness crawled over him. Bodily reactions were the worst of all, Bill concluded— they weren’t sensations he felt in his normal form. Anxiousness, nervousness, fear. It pooled in his gut and stuck in his throat like solidified acid.  
  
He turned his face back to the books with a frantic sort of smile.  
  
There are other things he’s started to feel since getting this body, although they hadn’t pronounced themselves up until rather recently. Recalling the events of his intervention and essentially standing over Dipper’s deathbed makes his chest recoil tightly. That feeling he definitely hasn’t deciphered, because it’s similar to the anxiousness, but wells up sorely in his throat, too. It’s making him want to go soft on that boy, or at least sit his sorry self down on a chair and tell him he can have every petty answer to the universe Bill is capable of giving him. Dipper’s recklessness entertained him more than anything, but this was going too far.  
  
It’s dangerous, teetering on things humans shouldn’t know about. These are things that no one has dared to mess with, a natural balance that wasn’t supposed to be coerced towards a polar end.  
  
Bill _hated_ balance, he loved dissecting the very entrails of what made the universe, but a demon bound to a summoning circle could only do so much. This boy could do greatly for his favor, with the temptation of knowledge. Dipper was both Eve and the snake, tempting knowledge but lacking it all the same, and Bill was rotten fruit.  
  
“Man, your books are really limited! Pick up something on astrology sometime.” He’s started doing this, talking to the dead air because he’s sure Dipper’s disembodied ghost is listening. Or he’s not, and Bill is just getting riled up from being in this body for so long. There’s no real way for him to know what sort of one way communication capabilities the dimensions have— at least, pertaining to the one Dipper is in.  
  
“Well— astrology in tandem with a few other things. Paranormal radiation works in all kinds of cooky ways out in your solar system. That’d be a pretty boring answer, though. I’m kind of hoping whatever killed you is sentient and actually has a grudge.”  
  
His eyes flicker dangerously to the corner. It feels like it’s scratching up the wall, much like he wants to. This body is making all his cognitive thought disjointed, and the weight of something akin to _memory_ is burning up his insides. Having to summon up energy to recollect what he had for dinner a week ago was downright panic-inducing for a demon that existed in the realm of subconscious, capable of pulling up anything from anywhere instantaneously.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
He doesn’t really know when he got outside, just that he had stumbled upon his bowed legs down the steps in uneasy patterns, right out the door at an hour so late that the TV wasn’t even blaring its ungodly reruns anymore. He also isn’t very sure what’s taking him out into the woods, or the sick vulnerability he’s feeling in its presence. Be it the instability of this body or Dipper’s own consciousness trying to conflict with his, Bill couldn’t tell, but with one solid certainty he could say: something was making him sick and _weak._ Weak-willed, weak-minded, say it how you will.   
  
The shack was making him edgy for unbeknownst reasons, and the stale air of Dipper’s bedroom itched at his lungs, which still bred a foreign sense in his mind— all in all, he wanted to reject it, every ounce of this human body and the sensations it gave him. The air was humid as ever, weighty and sticking to the skin, but it’s indefinitely more comforting.  
  
  
“I’m calling it _quits,_ kid. I don’t even know if you’re there to hear me! Haha,” Everything feels as scattered as his own puppeteer movements, and after a good forty-five minutes of walking through the woods, Bill had found himself a nice sturdy tree to plop his back against, skidded down until he was against the dirt and moss that stuck to his shorts. Did Dipper own anything wearable that didn’t stop at his knees?  
  
“Your body can rot for all I care. So can you! I don’t need something as inconsistent as a Pines in my plans, and I’ll definitely live to see another eccentric _moron_ like you fulfill what you couldn’t. Man, the things I could’ve accomplished,” His right hand has nails scratching up and down against the opposing arm, although it doesn’t bleed despite burning terribly. All the upper layers of skin are itched off, leaving a strange, shiny underlayer that oozes clear fluid briskly. Occasionally, he just presses his palm against it and lets the salt of his skin sting it violently. “All the things _you_ could have accomplished! But hey, call this your punishment.”  
  
It feels more like Bill’s punishment, frankly. He grits his teeth and waits for something from the kid, some sign of panic that would tell Bill he’s still in control of the situation, still as manipulative as he definitely doesn’t feel. Right now, it’s like something much bigger than him is pulling the strings. Demons aren’t supposed to feel this kind of conflict, it’s written in every ounce of his non-corporeal energy down to the subatomic particles of his being. He’s being torn up outside of the dimension he’s meant to reside in, and while he still takes to the mindscape when asleep, he’s started having dreams. Dreams he can’t control, and can’t always recall. There’s no refuge of the grey landscape in that.  
  
“ _Help me,”_ he hisses through his teeth, contrasting to the sharp half-yell of his usual voice, sounding like a brittle rage he’s reluctant to admit to.   
  
Something tells him he’s not going to give this body tonight. Not yet.  



End file.
